


your heart is a muscle you can't slow down

by rryuugazaki



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-24
Updated: 2017-11-28
Packaged: 2019-02-06 04:01:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12809181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rryuugazaki/pseuds/rryuugazaki
Summary: Ongoing series of Barba/Amaro one-shots, just for a good ol' gay time.Title from 'Heart is a Muscle' by Decorator.





	1. big, humungous, enormous and small

**Author's Note:**

> hey what's up, back at it again. i'm starting to write as a way to fuck around when i have nothing to do, so here we are! 
> 
> i can't say this is set during a particular time, or like, canon-compliant or anything. it's literally just free-floating boy stories. i am sorry. i am too weak and too gay for canon-compliancy at the moment.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> inspired by stillill!! they got me thinking about trans barba, about those good boys in general. i really appreciate them >:'0!!

Nick talks about his high school and academy years fondly, and Barba listens with a level of detached tolerance - part of him wants to vehemently disagree with the idyllic picture Nick paints, but instead he settles for a kind of, ’your experiences are not relatable because of my particular set of circumstances, but I don’t expect you to immediately realise that, and that’s okay’.

Overall, he tries not to think about law school that much.

_(Today, someone he hadn’t seen since his first few weeks here bumped into him while he walked to class. She spoke loudly, too loudly, that he was worried that people would look over at him, that attention would be drawn to him in the worst way. She was nice, somewhat disingenuous in how she asked him how he had been. He controlled the exchange in such a way that his deadname didn’t come up, talked over her so she didn’t have the time or space in the conversation to misgender him in the first place. It worked, and normally did. He wonders if he comes off as rude or harsh, and then decides he doesn’t really care.)_

He can’t say anything particularly groundbreaking or terrible happened to him, nothing besides what he considered to be normal at the time, but watching Nick speak about the friends he had, the parties he went to - he really can’t see his time spent studying and being talked at as anything more than just that. It was another set of years, another chapter in his life - albeit a bigger one, more of a milestone than anything, but one that was still  _mostly_ similar to the years that came before it. 

Except, of course, for the freedom to explore parts of his identity he had never had a real chance to think about.

_(Today, his entire torso aches. It’s to be expected; he’s been having a lot of late nights recently, days that start too early and end way later than he thought they would, so he’s been wearing his binder for hours past what he had considered a “healthy limit”. Those limits were set long before he had first unwrapped the discreet packaging in the safety of his own dorm room, though, when he thought he would have days where he would feel alright enough to wear a sports bra under a baggy sweater, hiding the foreign and strange curves of his own body._ _He does not have those days.)_

Nick must notice how he shifts where he's sitting, because his wide, nostalgic grin evens out into a smaller smile, still there but edged with a little concern. 

“Sorry, I’ve talked a lot.” His voice is low, and Rafael feels guilty.

“No, no, it’s fine.” He assures him, and wrestles with the part of his brain that wants to divulge in what it was like for a guy like him during school, looking awkward and feeling worse, most days. An equivalent exchange of information, though his feels a lot more dramatic, unnecessary.

_(Today, he feels okay about himself. He looks at his reflection in the mirror, from one angle and then another, feeling a little stupid but looking good, great even. He feels like Rafael. Which is why it hurts even more when, an hour later, someone calls him “excuse me, miss” while pushing past him in a coffee shop.)_

“I can’t say I spent much time being social.” Rafael says, a wry smile tugging at his mouth, “You think I went to Harvard to go to some idiot frat boy’s party?”

He’s trying to deflect, but Nick regards him with such a patient gaze, the gentle look of someone who doesn’t expect anything out of the interaction yet would and could and will wait, will listen, to whatever Rafael has to say. The pause - while not awkward, hangs heavy in the air. It gives him an out: he can deflect again, put his feelings in the box and not think about them until he at least has a drink cupped in his hands.

But it’s Nick. Nick, who reaches over and takes his hand, holds it in his lap and lets his fingers run over Rafael’s wrist, softly, again and again. Something tender, that anchors him. 

And so, he talks. First little revelations, smaller stories that are kind of funny in hindsight but hurt so, so much when they happened. Here’s the thing about a bad memory, he thinks: if your voice is dripping with sarcasm while talking about it, if you laugh at yourself, the person - out of some kind of awkwardness - will laugh back, and will probably forget about it by the end of the conversation. You move past it - you can give yourself points for talking about it, with none of the pressure to deal with how it makes you feel.

But Nick does not laugh. He just waits, listens.

Distantly, Rafael remembers that Nick cares about him, that he’s _allowed_ to talk about his past. It’s obvious, in some aspects. Of _course_ Nick cares about him. But he has spent so long trying to avoid it, never thinking about it - letting it sit in the back of his mind with a lot of memories that he chooses not to dwell on, that being able to talk openly about himself almost makes him feel sick. He pushes past his thoughts telling him to stop talking, reminds himself that, at its core, he feels safe sitting here with Nick.

_(Today, he’s tired. It’s been a while since he’s been misgendered so quickly, but it’s okay, because that person in the street he didn’t know him, just like the person in his seminar who called him by the wrong name didn’t know him, just like the man looking at his campus I.D. the other day who told him he should update his photo because he “looks so different with a haircut, almost like a boy” didn’t know him.)_

_(It’s better for people to not know him at all than to know him even a little, he thinks. It saves him the trouble of prying questions or constantly watching his words, their words.)_

_(That would be draining, and he’s already drained.)_

By the time he finished talking, his mouth feels dry. He stares at his hand as Nick holds it; it doesn’t quite feel like his own, but the warmth keeps him grounded somewhat. Nick tangles their fingers together, brings his hand up to kiss his knuckles.

Nick pulls him into an embrace, kisses his temple, then the space between his shoulder and neck. Rafael lets himself be manoeuvred, pulled in the direction of Nick’s bed. They undress in silence, and when he gets under the covers Nick immediately wraps his arms around him, pulls him close and kisses his forehead, soft and loving.

“Thank you for talking to me.” He says, so genuinely that Rafael's chest feels heavy with affection, and if his eyes sting slightly, he closes them before anything can develop. He nods, breathes deep. He’s talked a lot tonight, and needs to rest.

He’s tired, still - he thinks he will always be tired. But now, warm and secure, he feels like he could fall asleep and wake up tomorrow feeling better, safer. Like himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title taken from humongous by declan mckenna! unfortunately all my chapters are probably named after songs. i'm not strong enough to think of good names, my gay weak bones can only get energy from music and lyrics. thank u for understanding


	2. if i'm your world, then the world is yours

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> nick finds out rafael's never just spent a whole day in bed before, and decides it's up to him to fix it.

“You’ve _never_ spent a day in bed before?” Nick abruptly sits up from where he was lying next to Rafael, apparently completely awake. Just a minute ago, he was drowsy, gaze half-lidded as he idly stroked up and down his boyfriend’s arm. He looked ready to go back to sleep until he jokingly suggested that they stay in bed all day, and Rafael had let it slip that he had never done - or been allowed -to do that.

“Why would I spend a day in bed unless I was, _I don’t know_ , sick? Dying?” He replies, pulling the blankets closer to his body as Nick’s absence lets in cool air. “I have _work_ to do.” 

“No, you don’t, not today.” Nick’s right. Rafael promised to take the weekend off specifically to be with him. “Wait - wait right here.”

He was definitely not planning on being left alone, and makes an embarrassing noise of protest as Nick gets out of bed to pull on a hoodie. The sound he makes is enough to make Nick pause, turn around and give him a kiss, something to placate him.

“I’ll be one second, promise.” He says softly, and Rafael is sure that’s the same tone he’s heard him use with Zara. It’s comforting, nice to hear, though he didn’t _seriously_ need to be comforted. 

He closes his eyes after Nick leaves, lays in silence until he tunes into the rustling in the kitchen. Dangerous. First, packets moving, then the fridge being opened (multiple times), boxes being shaken, and finally, the sound of something being knocked over and then caught, followed by a relieved sigh.

“Nick, I swear to god.” Rafael groans, but he really can’t stop the grin from spreading over his face. He sits up as Nick returns holding multiple bottles of water, a carton of juice and a packet of chips in his arms. He drops them at the bottom of the bed and starts emptying the pockets of his hoodie. Chocolate, breakfast bars, individual packets of crackers. There’s a lot of variety. Rafael says as much, and receives a proud, lop-sided smile in return.

“All the more reason to not leave the bed.”

He narrows his eyes. “Not at all? For the  _whole_ day?”

“I mean, if you gotta, you gotta.” Nick acquiesces, crawling not so much _into_ the bed as _onto_ Rafael. “But, I can promise you won’t get bored.”

Nick kisses him, slow and insistent, moving his arms to wind around the other’s shoulders. Neither of them can stop grinning, little laughs and exhales as they move against each other. Nick’s fingertips move through the shorter, soft hair at the base of Rafael’s head, while Rafael’s hands - straddling the line between ‘refreshingly cold and ‘freezing’ - move up from Nick’s waistband to just below his ribs. The action hikes up his hoodie, exposing skin to cool air, but Nick doesn’t mind. He makes a snarky comment about how he _just_ put it on, which is ignored in favour of pulling Rafael's shirt up and and over his head. Having to separate for those few seconds must have really taken a toll on the both of them, because when they start to kiss again it’s so much more intense.

It’s getting colder these days - there’s a vent in the corner of Rafael’s bedroom that makes the whole space drafty, and he hasn’t started turning the heat up just yet. Thankfully though, even as they shed their - admittedly already few - layers, Nick runs hot, like a furnace, and Rafael is more than content for that to be his only source of heat.

\---

It’s only an hour or so later that he properly wakes up again; he’s really not used to being able to go back to sleep, more or less just managing to drift off for twenty minutes at a time. Plus, though he absolutely romanticised it earlier, Nick is actually too hot, almost clammy - he almost wants to throw the blankets off both of them.

Instead, he lifts Nick’s arm and sits up slowly, trying especially hard to not wake him up. 

(He always, always wakes up first. There are exceptions to the rule, of course - if his phone starts to buzz, Nick will wake up almost immediately, but overall he is somewhat slower to respond to noise and movement. 

One time, Rafael watched Nick sleep soundly for all of five minutes before getting bored and “accidentally” knocking a box of tissues off his nightstand. Nick did wake up, though, just a few seconds later, so he didn’t have long to feel any kind of real guilt about it.)

His throat is dry - the only drink within arm’s reach is a carton of orange juice, which is fine, but he can’t see a glass or mug he can use. Unless Nick brought one in and put it down somewhere out of eyesight.

And there it is. The excuse he needed to gently bump Nick with his fist, to wake him up. 

“Hey. Did you bring glasses?” He keeps his voice low and quiet, just above a whisper. Nick moves slightly, a sign that he’s not completely unconscious - his arm resting heavy across Rafael’s lap, his nose nuzzled against the other’s hip. It’s a comfortable weight, but Rafael is thirsty. “Nick.”

“Glasses for what?” Nick mumbles. He inhales deeply to try and wake himself up, blinks hard and rubs a hand over his face. It’s endearing.  


“For the juice.”

“No - just drink it from the carton. It’s just juice.” Nick rolls onto his back and moves his arm so it covers his eyes. After a pause, he peeks out from under it. “Who else is drinking your juice?”

“ _You_ are.” Rafael counters, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. It kind of is, actually. Nick is the reason he buys juice in the first place, why he actually goes grocery shopping on a regular basis instead of whenever he just completely runs out of food. “It’s gross.”

“It’s- it’s only spit.” Nick looks up at him like he’s the strangest man in the world, like there is something fundamental he missed and will never understand. Rafael almost feels offended at the implication that he’s the one being weird about this.

They stare at each other in silence, both wearing matching expressions of disbelief and mild annoyance. This is a hill they are both willing to die on. 

“We’ve swapped more than just saliva, Rafael.” Nick is completely serious. Rafael hates him for it.

Eventually, after sighs and a few half-complaints about how unsanitary it is, he takes a small sip from the carton. Nick looks at him fondly, almost proudly - so he takes another victory swig. There’s a certain look he gets sometimes, one where his gaze is soft and tender, where he goes all quiet and contemplative. Normally, these moments end with hand-holding and sweet kisses pressed to the corners of mouths. 

They usually don’t end with Nick sitting up and saying, “I love you.” 

Always eloquent and prepared, Rafael immediately inhales and subsequently chokes on the juice. He coughs - nose stinging and eyes burning, and his boyfriend, ever helpful, continues to look at him like he is perfect, like he has never wronged anyone in his entire life.

“ _Amaro_.” Rafael hisses between coughs. He doesn’t actually know where ‘Amaro’ came from - it feels foreign on his tongue, in this context - it’s almost as if his brain immediately tried to distance himself from the situation.

“I _do_.” Nick insists, through a laugh that sits just on the cusp of nervousness, sitting up to hold Rafael’s face in his hands, moving in to kiss him. He tastes a little sweet, tangy. Rafael feels his heart rate pick up pace, as it does so often around Nick. It’s simultaneously an expected reaction and new one, in the cosmic, _‘I-can’t-believe-this-is-something-I-get-to-experience-every-day’_ sort of way. 

“I love you too.” His voice comes out soft, quiet like he might scare him away. In his head, he justifies it as still being hoarse from all the coughing he just did after Nick sandbagged him. There's a moment of silence that’s just a little _too_ silent (they can’t stare at each other so lovingly and tenderly forever, after all) so he deflects and tells Nick as much, and receives a raised eyebrow and a small noise of feigned surprise in return.

“Oh, is that so?” Nick drawls, unimpressed, but amused all the same. He cards his hand through Rafael’s hair, moving loose strands away from his forehead.

“Would I ever lie to you?” Rafael answers, and kisses Nick for his troubles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank u for readin! also Big thanks to eric for bein real good and tolerating my Terrible And Illegal barba/amaro shitposting. a good friend and absolute lad 
> 
> title is from the world is yours by glasvegas! it's a good, gay one.


End file.
